passopenrecords.org

• Restaurant Inspections
Chambersburg Borough Council – after a lobbying effort by some local restaurant owners – voted unanimously in late 2005 to keep the inspection reports private, saying the public only needs to know whether restaurants pass inspections. Restaurants open for business meet borough inspection criteria, they said.

But a growing number of people believe the specific inspection results should be public, including Public Opinion readers who answered poll questions about the subject; Jack Wagner, state auditor general; Pennsylvania Newspaper Association legal counsel, the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association, Gov. Ed Rendell, and now, the state agriculture department.

Department spokesman Chris Ryder said, “It is a public record, and we now have the technology to allow people immediate access to that.”

Just a few years ago the state’s position was that its 17,600 restaurant inspections were part of ongoing investigations and were not public record.

When Public Opinion asked its online readers whether a health inspector’s findings at restaurants should be public, a resounding 92.5 percent of the 295 readers who responded said yes.

Yet the Borough of Chambersburg has refused to make them public. Council President Bill McLaughlin said council will examine the state’s Web site and possibly revisit the borough’s inspection policy.

Possibly?

It shouldn’t take legal action for council to understand the definition of public record.

People have a right to know whether restaurant employees followed proper hand-washing procedures; whether cooking equipment and counters were cleaned; whether the inspector found evidence of rodents or insects; and whether food was served at the proper temperatures.

• State Contracts
A Senate bill introduced this week would make state contracts more accessible to taxpayers.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Jake Corman, a Centre County Republican, would require all state contracts – including House and Senate contracts – to be posted online and would extend the amount of time contracts must remain available.

“These contracts are paid for with tax dollars, and therefore I believe that the public has a right to see how their money is being spent,” Corman said.

“Being able to review the contract information is important to the average taxpayer, because a lot of state money is disbursed through these contracts,” said Erik Arneson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware County, the bill’s co-sponsor.

• Public Meetings
With the Pennsylvania General Assembly struggling to improve the state open records law - considered by many to be the worst in the land – the council that governs North Belle Vernon should reflect upon the way it conducts business.

Council’s “We Might Meet on Just About Any Tuesday” policy was either designed or ignorantly crafted to exclude common folk from participation in the governmental process. While neither would provide a sufficient excuse for closed government, the latter, at least, would be easier to accept.

Human error, it would seem, is better than malevolence or malfeasance.

In case you haven’t been watching – and we fear North Belle Vernon’s elected leaders are hoping you aren’t – an anonymous caller last Tuesday called The Valley Independent to request a reporter cover a “special meeting.”

It seems council planned to address, at the very least, financial matters involving the borough’s troublesome sewer system separation project, a snafu of epic proportions.

North Belle Vernon residents have suffered greatly because of the sewer project, and they deserve the chance to observe and weigh in on every decision council makes relative to the whole fiasco. In fact, that right applies to all borough business.

After the state General Assembly – in the dark of night and out of public view – approved a hefty wage hike for itself in 2005, many now-former lawmakers learned that people abhor back-room government. In the wake of public outcry that led the Legislature to repeal the raises, many legislators left public life, albeit bathed in the warming light of rich pensions.

Hopefully, North Belle Vernon council will reject the darkness of back-room politics and operate the borough in bright sunlight. Because none of its members can depend on fat borough pensions to keep them warm on cold, dark nights.

• Jury Lists
At stake before Pennsylvania’s highest court was the public’s right to know who sits on a jury. The state Supreme Court, ruling 5-0, upheld that right last week.

It was in 2003 that Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge William J. Ober refused to release the list of jurors who convicted Ligonier podiatrist Karl Long of suffocating his wife.

Judge Ober said the names were confidential; The Tribune-Review and WPXI-TV sued. Four years later a ray of reason has pierced the clouds of convolution.

In a precedent-setting ruling justices affirmed that disclosing jurors’ names is a constitutional right that ensures the objective of fairness. (The court conceded there are specific exceptions – juror safety, jury tampering or harassment.)

This is a victory not merely for the media but for all citizens on whose behalf the media work.

America’s greatest strength is its system of justice. And the system’s greatest attributes are public access and openness.

• Turnpike Proposals
This comes under the category of “they don’t even tell each other.”

Gov. Ed Rendell Tuesday released to lawmakers the proposals to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike, after six months of holding them private.

Lawmakers’ tepid response to the governor’s proposal to lease the turnpike to generate revenue for needed transportation funding prompted the decision.

“We are providing the expressions of interest in the spirit of compromise, and so that legislators can see that we are serious about solving this crisis before they leave Harrisburg for their annual summer recess,” the governor said.

The 52 expressions of interest from private companies and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission were submitted to the state Department of Transportation in December. Details have been kept confidential to ensure the state receives the highest bid possible, said Rendell, who asked lawmakers not to make them public unless, and until, a turnpike bidding process is complete.